


The Charm

by JoAsakura



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 07:21:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2804273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoAsakura/pseuds/JoAsakura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mass Effect seen through a Supernatural lens.<br/>(I can now add, now that the cat is out of the bag, that this was a Mass Effect Holiday Cheer gift for the lovely JupiterJames. Happy Holidays, all!) <3</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Charm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jupiter_james](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jupiter_james/gifts).



ONE

It had gone from flurries to near-whiteout conditions in the course of an hour - the world limited to a hail of snow in the struggling cone of light from the van's headlights as they crept down the darkened highway.

Kaidan hated driving in it- which he found both frustratingly irrational and more than a little ironic. He was Canadian, for god's sake. He made fun of *other* people for their winter-based neuroses.

But there it was, a shiver in his spine from grind of his tires on the snow, his hands sweating on the steering wheel. It didn't help that Garrus' slow drawl was in his ear.

"We can't start without you." Garrus sighed. "And Liara's goin' nuts that we're going to miss the undead reindeer stampede."

"The weather's turned really bad, Garrus. You guys are just going to have to either do the special on New England's most haunted animal cemetery and it's undead reindeer without me in the middle of a blizzard or wait till tomorrow." Kaidan snapped, squinting into the snowy dark. "At this point, I just want to make it to Ludlow without dying."

"Liara says her prothean spirit guides are lookin' out for you, so godspeed little soldier. I'm gonna go calibrate the EMF detectors and we'll see you in the morning." Garrus signed off and Kaidan sighed. They were good friends, but what had started as a ridiculous web series on the paranormal had somehow ballooned into a nationwide production and he was starting to regret it.

No, scratch that, he thought. He had entirely regretted it fifteen episodes ago. Too many stories that weren't his to tell.

Liara was in to it with her spirit guides and post-doc work on North American rural mythology. At least this way, she wasn't wandering around with a shovel in the woods looking for things to unearth. Garrus, on the other hand, was just high on too many conspiracy theory sites and no desire to go work for his Daddy's security firm. He'd romanticised a subculture of "hunters" and Kaidan spent most of his time convincing Garrus to shoot the creatures they encountered with a camera instead of a .45. 

But it was different for Kaidan.

All of their traveling, all the night-vision goggles and jump scares in dark buildings had brought him no closer to the answers he'd sought in the beginning.

If there was anyone else like him in the world. And the answer, so far, had been a resounding "no".

Kaidan hunched over the steering wheel, deeper into his parka and wondered, not for the first time, why he was still doing this at all. His fingers found their way under the wrap of his scarf to the charm he wore around his neck. It was warmer than his own body heat and the shiny surface was rounded and worn on the edges from a lifetime of nervous touches.

It didn't look like much - a cheap, crude star of red glass with small, glittering wings on either side. He'd always thought of it as a key as much of a charm, but if it *was* a key, then he was hard-pressed to say what it might open.

It seemed so much smaller now, than in his earliest memories. The feeling of old, blunt hands pressing it into his numb fingers, how it burned like a gentle sun in his shivering hands, driving away the cold.

He'd been alone, then. Like now. Just his thoughts, the subdued music filtering through the garbage speakers in his truck and that damnable drone of the tires in the snow. Dangerous, and when the shadow, huge and dark, darted across the road, he jerked out of his near-trance, and hit the brakes too hard with shout.

It all happened so fast. A flash of red, animal-eyes in the headlights before the world spun off. The car skidded on the slick roads, slamming nose first through the snowbank on the side, into the steel guardrail hidden beneath the layers of frozen white with a terrible crunch.

Everything in the back moved forward with the impact. The painful pull of the seatbelt against Kaidan's chest kept him from hitting the dash as the front end crumpled, but didn't protect him from the suitcase that came flying from the rear a moment later, clipping him in the back of the head before crashing into the windshield.

The silence that followed - engine revving futilely as the snow hissed against the hood - was as loud as the accident itself. Panting, Kaidan stared out at the flakes in the sputtering headlights.

"Well, shit." Kaidan muttered, feeling the trickle of blood down his neck.

 

TWO

When Kaidan Alenko was twelve years old, his entire world had changed. He had no memory of what it had been before The Accident, but he knew, in the depths of his heart that it had not been what it had became.

It had been a miracle the police had been nearby when he'd dragged himself out of that frozen lake. That they'd seen the flash of incandescent blue that had shattered the swallowing ice and freed a half-dead child from its embrace.

He hadn't known his name, hadn't known how he got there. He'd only clutched the star in his hands like it was the only source of heat and life in his world.

They'd told him his name was Andrew - a boy missing, still wearing the hockey jersey he'd had when he'd vanished months before. He believed them because he had no basis for comparison as they bundled him to the hospital and a stern couple came to see him.

When they tried to take the charm from him, a window shattered and softly beeping monitors he'd been hooked to went berserk. The stern couple - because Kaidan could never make himself believe they were his parents - rather did the same.

He didn't like to think about the rest. The powers he couldn't control, shorting out mobile phone and shattering glasses when he got upset. The doctors, the priests and the increasingly bizarre and desperate attempts to "cure" him.

Fitful nights tormented by dreams full of nebulas unfolding like great gaseous wings through empty space, full of stars burning red through the scant protection of a child's eyes squeezed tight. And a small hand slipping from his own, leaving the most profound emptiness he could imagine. Lost in an unending wild with no map to show him the way home.

Eventually, he changed his name to something else and left to find the person he was meant to be. 怪談 - Kaidan. Like the ghost stories his grandmother used to tell. That's what he felt like most days - just a poltergeist, breaking windows with an unseen force. 

With a sigh, Kaidan closed his eyes, gathering that same strange force again, through his aching head, to *push* the mangled door open. With a flare of electric blue, the door blew off the frame with a screech and he tumbled out into the snow after it. 

He scrubbed his face, trying to drive away the memories. "I am so fucked." He rasped, dragging himself upright against the car with a rueful laugh. 

There was no push of powers that would fix a broken axle, a broken engine, and Kaidan kicked the nearest wheel irritably. A glance at his mobile was no more comforting. "Great. No service." He said to the blizzard. "Fuck you, winter!" he added with a shout, feebly kicking at a clump of snow.

He started to layer on his hat and the emergency blanket, wondering if he was even going to survive the night. (You're Canadian!) He reminded himself glumly. (Of course you will, minus some toes probably.)

The sudden flare of headlights through the storm stopped his train of thought, and he straightened, brushing snow from their faces as a battered bronco ground through the snow to stop beside him.

It was more than the cold that stole his breath away as the window rolled down. It wasn't just that the driver was handsome - he was, by any measure even under a hood and hat - but his eyes were that same luminescent shade of blue that haunted Kaidan's tortured dreams. 

They stared at each other for a long, long moment. Kaidan clutched the emergency blanket to his chest a little harder, heart hammering in his ears. He wanted to say something to this guardian angel who'd suddenly appeared, but all he managed to do was shiver a bit and say. "Hi."

"Hey, you ok? Do you need a hand?" The man asked with an appallingly normal voice, as he quickly hopped out. "C'mon, get in? Heater's going." He herded Kaidan to the passenger door and pushed him inside before examining the ruined car. 

Kaidan didn't even think to protest until he was sitting in the bronco, listening to the warble of bad country music and breathing in the mingled scents of old coffee, cardboard tree air freshener and, stranger than anything, roses. The man stomped back to the truck and quickly opened the door. "That car's not going anywhere. What do you need out of it? I'll get you out of here." He said with an apologetic smile.

"Uh. Just the suitcase. I think it's in the front seat, now." Kaidan barely had a chance to say it before the man was bounding back into the snow. Before he brought it back, he picked up the door and hauled it back to the car. Kaidan's eyes were aching from impact and the force he'd used to get free. He knew he had to be seeing things when he thought he saw a spark as the man leaned the door back on the frame.

"Ok." He said,clambering back into the truck with Kaidan's bag. He was talking almost nonstop as he shook the snow from his rusty-brown hair. "I'll call Joker, he's a mechanic, and the cops for you when we get to town, there's no service out here, and do you need a hospital? Because the nearest one's in Ludlow and we're not..."

"Wait, wait. Do you, I don't know, have a name?" Kaidan cut him off, and those eyes turned back to him, startled and bright. His face burned from the sudden examination.

"Name's Shepard." He held out a heavy-gloved hand to Kaidan with shy little smile. "I'm happy to help."

THREE

The road measured out in blurry white feet in front of them, staticky country music murmuring from the bad speakers in the door. He knew he should make some sort of small talk, but every topic died in his throat as he looked at the other man's profile limned in the glow of the dash. Kaidan took a deep breath and peeled his hat off, wincing as it caught on the cut under his hair. "So. You're not a serial killing cannibal who trolls the empty highways looking for your next victim, are you? I mean, I just need to be prepared." He laughed nervously, and inwardly cursed Garrus. Those sort of thoughts were all his fault.

Shepard shot him a side glance then snorted. "Damn. There goes my dinner plans." He scowled briefly, and reached out towards Kaidan. "Hey, are you hurt?"

"Oh, i got whacked in the head in the accident." Kaidan gingerly touched the spot, moving on autopilot. He froze as Shepard's fingers brushed his hand - cool and warm at once, the tenderness fading in the wake of that simple contact. There was a static snap between them and he thought he saw another flicker of orange-gold out of the corner of his eye, like a spark on a cat's back in the dark. 

Kaidan found himself leaning, just a little bit, into it, the contact leaving a tiny thrill down his spine.

"You should have doc Chakwas take a look at that." Shepard quickly withdrew his hand, eyes focused firmly on the road. "Feels like a nasty lump." 

There was a faint, incongruous scent - metal and roses - in the wake of that touch and he wanted another whiff of it. "It feels better already." Kaidan said, then blinked. "Ah. That sounded like. I mean..."

"I'm glad." The other man laughed softly. "You... I never bothered to ask, what you were doing out in this?" Shepard asked as he turned onto an off-ramp.

"I could ask the same of you." Kaidan raked his hand through his thick crop of dark curls, the pain gone completely.

"Oh. I was making a delivery. I work for Captain Anderson - he runs the florist in Normandy." He gestured to the sign pointing to "NORMANDY, 5 MI" as they passed. "Dropping off for a funeral when the weather turned sour."

"You don't seem like a florist." Kaidan said. "And that also came out weird, I'm sorry. I don't even know what I mean by that. So, just... Shepard?"

"It's ok. I get that a lot." Shepard laughed again. "And yeah. Just... Shepard. One name. Like The Rock."

"The Rock is technically two names." Kaidan smiled, watching the way Shepard's eyes crinkled in the corners as he laughed. "Although The Shepard makes you sound like you have an affinity for sheep."

"That came out wrong too." Shepard added, then glanced over at Kaidan. "So. What were you doing out in this? I like to know where my dinner comes from."

Kaidan sank back in his seat. "Ah. Well. This is going to sound ridiculous. But I... research the supernatural." He said, fidgeting with his scarf. "We track stuff down and.." He trailed off, watching Shepard stiffen in his seat. "Are you ok?"

"So. What. Do you do, hunt things? Put a bullet in whatever you don't understand? Or are you one of those guys online who film a bunch of low-light stuff with jump scares, making fun of the people who think their garages are haunted?" Shepard gritted his teeth and said with a forced casualness that made the hair on the back of Kaidan's neck stand up. Maybe he hadn't imagined that flash, that static spark between them. He saw another flicker of that odd red-gold, like a peek of lava beneath the fragile, cooling skin and he was sure that he didn't imagine that either.

"I've met some hunter-types. And no. To both. It's important.. to me. To treat this kind of stuff with curiosity and ... I don't know. Integrity, maybe?" Kaidan said carefully, twisting the end of his scarf in his hand. "I'm looking for something and.. I don't exactly know what it is or how it'll present. My friends and I have seen a lot of strange stuff, but I haven't found it... them... yet." He watched Shepard's profile in the light of the growing number of streetlamps, watched his jaw twitch as those beautiful eyes darted to the side to meet Kaidan's gaze.

"And who or what are you looking for, Mister Alenko?" Shepard's voice was cautious, neutral.

"Someone like me." Kaidan said hopefully after a deep breath. He held out his hand to show the blue sparks swirling along the lines in his palm like the snow outside, as all around, everything in the car that wasn't nailed down began to lift, gently from their spots, floating in a faint sapphire shimmer. 

FOUR

Kaidan wasn't sure what sort of reaction he was expecting. But the complete lack of one was definitely not it. "Shepard?" 

"We're almost there." Shepard said in that same neutral voice. His fingers flexed on the steering wheel and his shoulders were positively rigid. 

Kaidan blinked and the scattered pens and food wrappers clattered to the floor of the truck. He coughed and then scowled out the window, unsure of what to say next.

Outside the warm little world of the truck, a little town now spread out around them, neat houses sparkling in strings of bulbs and tinsel, warm light spilling from the windows onto the snow-covered sidewalks and trees. "So, this is Normandy." He said to fill the silence. "It looks nice."

"It's peaceful." Shepard said without looking at him as he pulled alongside the curb. "Come on. I live over top the shop. Anderson lets me stay there." The neon sign reading "Anderson's Floral" did little to soothe the growing jitter in his nerves.

Stepping out of the truck took his breath away with a sharp stab of cold, dry air - but as they stepped through the jingling door into the warm, humid confines of the shop, Kaidan almost wished he was back in the cold.

The rangy, dark man behind the counter peered up over his glasses and shook his head. "You weren't making any pickups, Shepard." He chuckled. "I've told you about bringing home strays."

"I was in an accident." Kaidan said, realising that Shepard had vanished back outside to grab his bag. "He saved me...Captain Anderson?"

"He does that." Anderson laughed. "He can't help himself. And Please, David is fine. The only one who calls me Captain is Shepard. I haven't been in the marines since 'Nam."

"Kaidan. It sounds like there's a story here." Kaidan watched the snow blow against the shop's windows as Shepard trudged back.

The old man grew quiet, wrinkled, blunt fingers smoothing the paper around a bouquet. "Kaylee.. that's my wife... and I found him all busted up as a kid. Kaylee and I, well, we just sort of became his family when no one came to claim him. Not much else to tell." Anderson said as he wrapped the flowers. He didn't look up, but Kaidan got the distinct impression that he was being examined. 

"Sir." Kaidan started (a small hand slipping from his own, and he could still *feel* that in his dreams), but Anderson held up his hand as the door jingled. 

Shepard looked at them both, eyes narrowing. "...Did I miss something?" He asked as he shook the snow from the close crop of his brown hair.

"Not a thing, son." Anderson chuckled. "We'll call you a cab in the morning, Kaidan. I don't think anyone's going anywhere else tonight. And Shepard has a very comfortable couch. I should know. Slept on it more than once when Kaylee and I went through our rough patch." 

"I couldn't.." Kaidan's protest trailed off as he saw Shepard flush. "It's ok? I don't want to put you out..."

"It's fine." The other man muttered, hauling the bag towards the stairs in the back. 

Anderson watched him go, then turned to Kaidan. "I'll let him tell you the rest of the story, son."

FIVE

The loft over the shop was sparsely furnished in hand-me-downs and curb finds, Kaidan noticed as he pulled off his parka. The pipes clanked in the walls as the heat came up and it smelled of metal and roses. Aside from the scant kitchen, the most impressive thing was a massive, gruesomely plaid couch parked in front of a duct-taped TV.

It felt more like a temporary way-station than a home.

One wall was papered with pages torn from books, maps and illegible notes, and Kaidan shifted uncomfortably as Shepard set his bag down. The other man followed his gaze, then scratched through his hair. "Oh. That." He muttered, peeling off his own coat. "Anderson likes to call it my map. Which I suppose is better than the Wall of Crazy, which is what Joker calls it." 

"If it's a map, what are you looking for?" Kaidan asked gently, still feeling the weight of his reveal sitting between them. He'd met enough people with strange secrets to know when someone wanted to talk, but didn't know how. Shepard was bubbling with questions, but couldn't figure out where to start asking. Kaidan had always found a redirect worked with recalcitrant subjects they were filming, there was no reason it wouldn't work now.

Shepard hung up his coat with a sigh. "I lost something, a long time ago. And I don't know where it went. I don't remember when I lost it or even what it's supposed to look like." Shepard struggled to pull off another layer. "And I'm afraid of what's going to happen when i find it."

Kaidan watched the t-shirt under his sweater pull up with the motion. At first, he enjoyed the brief flash of finely muscled back, narrow waist dipping into Shepard's battered jeans. The man really had no idea of how gorgeous he was, Kaidan thought.

But the filthier imaginings were put aside as he saw the bottom of a tattoo peek out from the hem as Shepard discarded his sweater. A point of scarlet and a sweep of gleaming blue, and Kaidan thought his heart might stop. Shepard moved to tug his shirt back down, when Kaidan grabbed his wrist. There was a startling spark of static, blue and red-gold, and Shepard froze, eyes wide.

Kaidan let him go, and met his gaze. "This is going to sound nuts. But..." Eyes never leaving Shepard's, he fished into the neck of his flannel shirt, and pulled out the charm. "Does your tattoo look something like this?"

Shepard's eyes widened as he took it in his hand, rubbing a thumb over the little red star as Kaidan had done a thousand times before. Then he let it fall, and turned, slowly pulling up his shirt. A red star in the centre of his back, blue wings spreading out across his broad shoulders. With a trembling hand, Kaidan traced the outline of one, feeling Shepard shiver under the touch.

"You said you were looking for someone like you." Shepard said in a hoarse little whisper as Kaidan touched him. "So have I." He turned, fidgeting with the shirt in his hands and Kaidan's touch never left his skin. "I don't even know where to start, though."

"Start at the beginning. Tell me your story." Kaidan rasped, lifting on his toes, just a bit, as Shepard's shirt drifted to the floor. "And I'll tell you mine."

SIX

They told their tales in between rough kisses and desperate hands leaving sparking, static trails on shivering flesh. Kaidan of the cold, of the accident, of a life lived in a skin that never felt like his. Shepard, as they backstepped towards his ugly couch, told him of something called the Crucible - he didn't know what it was, or where, but he knew what it had done. It had led something dark and evil through to Earth or it would. It had let him through to try and stop them when no one else would step forward.

But it had burned him, broken him and stripped away everything but shattered skin and bones and blood and memories slipping through his fingers like a hand he had lost his grasp on in the maelstrom they'd passed through.

"I don't even know what i am, or what i'm supposed to do." Shepard said, twining his fingers with Kaidan's as he lay back. "I have a map that doesn't make sense, fragments of half-remembered scraps taped to a wall."

Kaidan held his hand tight. Neither one was small, but the cool/warm tingle of it against his palm felt like it had always belonged there.

The storm battered against the loft's windows, but the flicker of lights matched the hammering in Kaidan's chest. There was a delicate latticework of scars beginning to show on Shepard's skin, that faint, heated light burning through the gaps, and the blue of Kaidan's own crackled along the edges. "So. You have a map to nowhere, and I have a key that doesn't open a damn thing." Kaidan said as lightly as he could, hands sliding down Shepard's arms to his sides. It felt right, this. It felt like he'd been waiting forever for this moment. "What are the odds?"

"Everything happens for a reason, someone told me once." Shepard dragged his hands through Kaidan's hair, grinding up against his thigh. "...is this ok?"

"I think it is." Kaidan murmured against Shepard's mouth. He knew, dimly, that he should call Garrus and Liara. Should call the mechanic. Should push away from this man he'd just met and knew nothing about. Should offer to buy him dinner out and find another place to stay, far away.

He knew, in the pit of his stomach, if he did what he wanted... needed... to do in this moment, that there wouldn't be a way back to the life he'd left on the side of a snowy highway. Back to bigfoot and zombie reindeer and his friends waiting in Ludlow with cheap beers and pizza. 

A map and a key. The smell of metal and roses in his nose. Blue wings unfolding against the vast, black well of the sky, red stars burning in their orbits. It was everything he'd ever wanted. "I think this it's better than ok." Kaidan said softly, tugging worn denim down Shepard's hipbones as if he'd done it a thousand times before. "For the first time in my life, it's better than ok."

SEVEN

In the shop below, Anderson hummed to himself as the lights flickered in time with the muffled sounds drifting through the ceiling. 

"Kaylee?" His small smile broadened, his wife's voice on the phone as he shrugged on his coat. "I'm going to be late getting home. Yes, yes. I promise, I'll be careful. The storm's going to be over soon, I think."

But when he stepped out of a side door, it wasn't into the blizzard blanketing the little town. The bar was dimly lit, it's patrons little more than shadows jostling back and forth, and Anderson made his way through to a table in the back.

"I would think, Old Soldier, what you've been doing is trying to cheat the system." The man across the table said. His face was shrouded in darkness, but his eyes were cold blue sparks in the gloom. He took a long drag on a cigarette and tapped off the ash. "A storm comes out of nowhere and our hero just happens to run off the road?

Anderson sat down, taking the beer that was already waiting for him. In the lights of the bar, his own eyes flashed red for a moment as he took a drink. "Coincidences happen every day." He sat back. "I'm certain that together, there's nothing they can't accomplish. But, your reapers might still prevail, my illusive friend."

"Then I suppose we just wait and enjoy the show that's coming?" The tip of the Illusive Man's cigarette glowed briefly in the dark, like the red point of a star.

"Absolutely. After all, we have the best seats in the house." The Old Soldier answered. "The very best seats in the house."


End file.
